Stas Namin. "Unity of counterpoint" Automatic translate

The jubilee program of copyright events of the photographer and artist, musician and composer, theater and film director Stas Namin, which took place throughout 2021 and associated with his 70th birthday, continues with a large-scale personal photo exhibition, which will open on November 18 in one of the most prestigious Moscow halls - Gallery of classic photography on the Savvinskaya embankment.

The Unity of Counterpoint is the most complete photo retrospective of Namin in the last 20 years: the last large-scale exhibition of the photographer’s works was held in 2001 at the Stroganov Palace of the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, and before that personal exhibitions were held at the Central House of Artists and the Bolshoi Manege in Moscow.

The exhibition will feature over a hundred works covering all periods, themes and directions of his photographic work. These include early analog works created before the digital era in photography, including the black and white works of 12-year-old Namin. A significant part of the exposition is occupied by travel series made during the author’s numerous, including round-the-world, travels. North and South America, Africa, India, Easter Island, Armenia - a bright kaleidoscope of faces, landscapes, architectural wonders, animals, ceremonies, rituals and life scenes creates a special world - the world in which the photographer lives, in which he is comfortable and he is in a hurry to share with the viewer.

According to Kirill Svetlyakov, curator of the Tretyakov Gallery, Namin is “a person who seeks different connections with the world through art…. from Moscow we move to New York, and then - Africa, India, Armenia, Easter Island and so on. Many artists dislike the word art, using the word practice instead. And Stas, in my opinion, has an exhibition of practices, and very different ones. And any of these practices are already indistinguishable for me, this is a creative symbiosis. "

In the practice of various studio photography, a special place is occupied by the cycle "Magic of Venus" presented by the State Russian Museum, which oversaw this 15-year photographic study of one of the most mysterious phenomena of female nature - the phenomenon of human birth. The works of this cycle will be presented for the first time in the exhibition space.

“Namin approaches the topic in his own way, from the side of one of the most important and cherished - in every sense - iconographic traditions. It seems that the artist trusted his intuition and, starting from personal sensory impulses and events (Stas was present for the first time at the birth of his son), he began to immerse himself in the theme that captured him, ”writes Anton Uspensky, art critic and expert at the State Russian Museum, about the Magic of Venus.

Namin himself speaks of the “female” theme in his work: “For me, female beauty is a part of the beauty created by nature that I seek in life and try to capture in different ways: in painting, in photography, in cinema, in theater and even in music. In female images, I see amazing and inexplicable energy and magical beauty, which I try to convey through color, plasticity, shadows and, of course, eyes. "

The photographer’s experiments with digital technologies are represented by the series "Computer Games", where plastic and color dominate, and "Matriarchy", where the beauty and exoticism of the subjects add up to a concept that is consonant with today’s tendencies of emancipation. One of the important themes confirming the idea of ​​"Unity of counterpoint" is the work "Opposition", which was named after Namin’s exhibition, which took place this summer at the Museum of Modern Art.

“It seems to me that the most important thing in any art is beauty,” says Namin. - If it turned out beautifully, for me this is already quite enough, and the meaning and concept are like a bonus to beauty… "

The characteristic that the curator, head of the Department of Contemporary Trends of the State Russian Museum, Alexander Borovsky, gave to Namin the photographer 20 years ago, is quite relevant today. Namin’s attitude to photography is “a sinking heart, delight, satisfaction… To hell with them, the current rules of good photographic tone, as long as they imply endless mediation (with the help of a system of appropriations, contextual attitudes and references) of the initial emotional impulse! Stas Namin felt joy, grasping nature, enjoyed taking pictures, and wanted to keep this feeling of satisfaction at the level of realization, in the imprint, looking at it and commenting on it. Everything else will follow! And - it came. "